PRESS DIGEST- New York Times business news - Jan 13

Jan 13 The following are the top stories on the
New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these
stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

* The Basel Committee for Banking Supervision agreed on
Sunday to ease a new rule, meant to rein in risky balance
sheets, starting 2018, in an effort to avoid tightening
financing for the world's economy. The regulators signaled there
is still no agreement on the final level of the new leverage
ratio, which measures how much capital a bank must hold against
its loans and other assets. ()

* Comcast Corp unit NBCUniversal News Group
announced a partnership with Now This News, a startup that
creates short-form news segments tailored for distribution over
social media sites like Vine, Instagram and Snapchat. It was not
revealed how much money NBC invested, but the transaction would
give it a roughly 10 percent stake, as well as an entry into a
new news format. ()

* Gerchen Keller Capital, an upstart investment firm that
bets on lawsuits, was expected to announce on Monday that it has
amassed about $260 million for its second fund. Litigation
finance, as the business is known, often involves bankrolling
plaintiffs in exchange for a slice of the lawsuit's potential
winnings. ()

* An increasing number of pawn businesses catering to the
wealthy offer fast liquidity in exchange for high-end luxury
items. With almost 250 years of experience in the exclusive
world of high-end pawn, Suttons & Robertsons has come to the
United States to fill what it believes is a growing need among
wealthy Americans who have spent beyond their means and need a
quick - and quiet - infusion of cash in exchange for a few
cherished baubles they are willing, at least temporarily, to
live without. ()

* The annual North American International Auto Show has
taken on added importance for Detroit, which filed for
bankruptcy six months ago, as the city desperately needs a
successful show to improve its battered image. ()

* Indonesia, one of the world's biggest producers of
minerals including gold, nickel, copper, tin and thermal coal,
implemented a new law on Sunday banning the export of
unprocessed ore. ()

* A fire at a Citibank branch in Morningside Heights
in Manhattan burned for more than 30 hours on Saturday and
Sunday, drawing over 200 firefighters before it was
extinguished. The fate of customers' valuables stored in safe
deposit boxes at the branch was not known. ()

Next In Company News

FRANKFURT/LONDON, Dec 9 The European Central
Bank hopes its decision to confront struggling Italian bank
Monte dei Paschi at last will draw a line under a multi-year
crisis that has risked tarnishing its reputation as a credible
supervisor.

Dec 9 A former Cantor Fitzgerald & Co trader has
been indicted on charges that he defrauded investors by lying
about the price of mortgage bond transactions he handled for
them after the financial crisis in order to illegally profit.

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